اعتبار همگرا و افتراقی ابزارهای غربالگری روان پریشی ضعیف شده

Brief self-report questionnaires that assess attenuated psychotic symptoms have the potential to screen many people who may benefit from clinical monitoring, further evaluation, or early intervention. The extent to which recently developed screening instruments demonstrate sound psychometric properties is an important issue toward the implementation of these measures in clinical practice. This study examines the convergent validity, discriminant validity, and test–retest reliability of four recently developed screening instruments. Screening instruments were included in an assessment battery and administered to a sample of 355 college students. Screening scores support the convergent and discriminant validity and the test–retest reliability of these measures.

Brief screening instruments for the ‘Attenuated Psychosis Syndrome’ (APS) have the potential to be an important piece of more comprehensive psychosis risk identification efforts. Researchers have developed several self-report screening instruments for assessing psychosis risk states (e.g., Heinimaa et al., 2003, Miller et al., 2003, Ord et al., 2004 and Loewy and Cannon, 2010). Items contained in these measures represent attenuated symptom constructs associated with psychosis risk such as unusual perceptions and sensations, ideas of reference, affective changes, superstitious beliefs, or abnormally suspicious thoughts. The extent to which these screening instruments specifically tap APS symptoms relative to general psychopathology is an important issue in the validation of these instruments for clinical use. APS may share many clinical characteristics with non-psychotic mental disorders. Relatively non-specific constructs associated with APS such as social disengagement, constricted or dysthymic mood, anxiety, or attention problems may be less useful for screening purposes, as these symptoms also characterize non-psychotic mental health problems. This study aims to demonstrate the convergent and discriminant validity and the test–retest reliability of four recently developed screening instruments for APS symptoms (Prime Screen—Revised, Prodromal Questionnaire—Brief, Youth Psychosis At-Risk Questionnaire—Brief, and PROD Screen). We hypothesize that correlations among screening tools designed to assess APS will be higher than correlations of screening scores with established measures of less related constructs.